


Monster, hero

by liliaeth



Category: Dexter (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 19:55:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liliaeth/pseuds/liliaeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To his victims, Dexter is a monster, to Lumen, he was her hero</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monster, hero

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LMT](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LMT/gifts).



Leaving Miami was the hardest thing Lumen had ever done. Even before she…fell for him. It was weird, all that had happened there. It had changed her. Made her into something different, something new and she hated that, because this new person she was turning into, it was forced on her. The hate she felt, that need to see their blood, their pain, as they’d taken hers. She’d almost lost herself in that need, would have, if not for him, for Dexter.

Killing that first bastard had given her peace, but only because Dexter made sure she only killed him after she knew for a fact that he was one of her rapists. If there had been even the slightest bit of doubt, it might have haunted her, now… nothing.

He’d held her in his arms, kept her calm, focused.

It didn’t matter at the time what he was, not once she realized that no matter what else he might do, he’d never harm her. She’d seen movies, games, books, with the ‘good’ monster. She’d never expected to be able to think of someone as ‘her monster’. But then again, he wasn’t. He wasn’t a monster. To them maybe, to the other monsters, but not to her, nor to anyone innocent. He was a hero, her hero and he’d saved her, from herself as well as from them, the ones who’d taken her, who’d raped her, who would have killed her, like they did to those other girls. The ones that weren’t lucky enough to have Dexter show up before Boyd killed them.

She was number thirteen, lucky number thirteen.

And she lived.

But did she? She couldn’t go on like this. She saw it in his eyes; he wanted her to stay, to have someone with him, who was like him. But that wasn’t her. That was just who Jordan Chase had turned her into. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t the girl who left home and ran away from her engagement. It wasn’t the young girl who wanted a range of choices.  
If she stayed, she feared that this new Lumen, this killer, might become the real Lumen. And if that happened, then Jordan Chase had won.

When she told him she was leaving, he became angry and for a moment she feared him, for a moment she thought she was seeing what those others had seen, and it made it clear she was right, she had to leave. There was no other option.

And then he understood. It was weird, how someone like him could exist. This monster, this man, this hero. So hurt over the death of his wife, so loving to his children, so cold to his victims, so human.

When he talked about Rita, it was like looking at another man, at the man who held her, who took her to his bed to comfort her. And as much as he tried to hide that man, she knew it was the real him, and maybe, maybe she could pull him out, as he’d saved the real her.

But how could she do that when she wasn’t even sure if she could save herself? She had to find herself, before she could find him. And when he promised to hold her darkness for her, she loved him for it, knowing that that part she’d needed so badly, would be safe with him.

So she left Miami, she went back to her parents. She let them coddle her and hold her and then one night she told her mother what had happened. Not just about the rapes, the abuse, but about how Dexter had saved her, taken care of her and then, how he’d helped her kill the men who’d hurt her.

Her mother’s tears fell and Lumen had no idea how to deal with them. How could she, she’d lost her tears all those months ago?

And Lumen found herself comforting her mother over her own pain. She tried to think of what Dexter had done for her. It helped.

“Thank God for that man,” was what her mother finally said. And it hit Lumen that her mother didn’t even think of the murders she and Dexter had committed. All her mother saw was the hero who’d saved her little girl, the good man who was the reason that Lumen had been able to come back home. And there was nothing that could ever convince her otherwise.  
It helped, it helped knowing that her trust in Dexter hadn’t come out of nowhere, because after all those months, she’d started to question her own sanity for trusting a man she’d seen murder another man in cold blood. But listening to her mother, hearing the admiration in her mother’s voice, it made her realize she’d been right to trust Dexter and to be grateful to him for all he’d done for her.

So what was she to do when Dexter was arrested and she had to watch the FBI decry him as a heartless murderer on live television? What could she possibly say that wouldn’t make things worse for him?

What would he want her to do? Probably to stay here and live her life, ignoring what was happening to him.

Fuck that.

In the end, she found herself a list of names, the names of the people Dexter had killed, and God there had been many. She followed that list, to all the people whose relatives had been murdered by Dexter’s victims. And more than that, she found the people targeted by those same killers.

The lives Dexter had saved.

Men, women, children.

And then she went to them, to their families, to all those people who might have lost a loved one if some serial killer hadn’t stepped in as their guardian angel. So when she finally stood in front of Debra Morgan’s door, holding the DVD, the godforsaken DVD that she’d never been able to destroy, she rang the bell and waited.

Because no matter how angry Debra might be with her brother right now, he’d saved her too and that had to count for something, right?

This time, someone needed to save Dexter and maybe, just maybe, doing so would finally save the real Lumen as well.


End file.
